Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Writers: Pedro Almodóvar
Stars: Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia
Synopsis: A film director reflects on the choices he’s made in life as past and present come crashing down around him.
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Pedro Almodovar has had a solid 2010s, but a step less than his hot streak in the 2000s. His thriller, The Skin I Live In, reunited him with Antonio Bandaras in over 20 years. I’m So Excited was a throwback to the straight-up comedy, very lighthearted that hadn’t been seen since Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown. Julieta, his last work, brought on the emotional bonds of mother and daughter, much like in Volver. But until this point, he didn’t really have a defining movie, for the decade. With what has to be the most directly personal picture in his career, Pain & Glory (Dolor y Gloria) gives Almodovar that movie that can signal his best of the decade.
Antonio Banderas plays Salvador Mallo, an aging director who is dealing with physical ailments while lamenting on his past. He continues to think about his childhood when he was raised in a village with his mother (Penelope Cruz) while also preparing for one his of movies being remastered and re-released 32 years after. In the process, Salvador ends up having to reconnect with the film’s lead, Alberto (Asier Etxeandia), who he hasn’t spoken with since then because of the latter’s drug use during the shoot, as well as confront the depression and loneliness he is dealing with at his age.
The life of Salvador Mallo plays out to us in what has led him to this point, aging out with bodily pains and the personal heartbreak that nags him. It is also the life of Pedro Almodovar in a nutshell; like Salvador, Almodovar grew up in a small village raised by women starting with his mother, is gay, and intellectually stimulated in reading, writing, and the love of movies. And most importantly, the pain is fended off through creative writing that becomes a movie. It is a labor of love to himself and to those he lived with and loved.
For Antonio Bandaras, only he could put these feelings on the screen and, as advertised, is brilliantly moving as Mallo. He doesn’t have to speak a lot to express it all because most of it is on his face with the haggard look and grey hairs that show a man weakening in the face of father time and with mostly the past on his mind. Bandaras’ Mallo struggles to grasp what went wrong in his life and the key moments of his childhood. Add in Alberto Iglesias’ score and José Luis Alcaine’s gorgeous visuals, you have a piece of art as equal as Van Gogh’s painting, Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity’s Gate).
It is Almodovar’s best work certainly since Volver and his own version of 8 1/2 but without the music or the celebratory feel around a fictional director. It is a melancholy piece of work that those of a certain age can relate to what they have regrets about, regardless of occupation and sexual orientation. But this is from Almodovar and his path to glory along with his pain is unlike anyone else.
Overall Grade: A-
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